Indie Games: Why You Should Play Them

We all enjoy the mainstream games that often have millions of players, such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, but to truly call yourself a gamer, you have to get into the lesser-known indie games that generally never received the funding they needed to gain popularity. Popularity does not always guarantee engaging gameplay, it just means that the company that produced it was able to attract enough attention to it to cause a mob of people to gain interest.

Weâ??ve seen this happen with World of Warcraft: it gained an immediate cult following because its producer, Blizzard Entertainment, is well known in the gaming industry. In my opinion, however, the gameplay is quickly redundant and it lacks a storyline that defines your character from start to finish. With indie games, the producers, although they may be on a very low budget, are often very creative and able to create engaging universes that keep users playing them well after the average â??die offâ? time of games.

Cradle

Cradle is a must for sci-fi lovers: it takes place in almost a dream world in a desert in Mongolia. It is a first person game that follows a quest storyline and free movement throughout the world. The protagonist (you) meets a cyborg woman who is in need of help. The player has to help the mechanical woman by repairing her lost functions. The two of them together are faced with the task of revealing a mystery surrounding an abandoned entertainment park. This game features puzzles that require critical thinking, hidden objects that players can hunt down, intense graphics and a storyline that changes based on the decisions that you make throughout the game. You can later repeat the game to discover the alternative endings.

StarDrive

For those who enjoy space-based games, StarDrive is a combination of action and strategy. The final goal is to establish a space empire. Players start out with only one planet and limited resources. Their objective is to design ships and build colonies, eventually moving on to discover other worlds. The most prominent feature of the game is its detailed ship design system. The player can customize every aspect of the ship, such as where each part goes using what are called ship modules. Ships’ effectiveness will change depending on the combinations of modules used, encouraging the player to experiment with different ideas. Players can also customize the race of their character by changing traits from many different categories. These include physical and socioeconomic traits, and traits that are related to your character’s life and traditions. This game allows for a unique experience, as you can design your character’s story yourself, then play it through.

Digital: A Love Story

Digital: A Love Story is definitely different from any game I’ve ever seen. The majority of the game takes place on online bulletin boards, responding to and sending messages to non-player characters (NPC). It also involves cracking into online systems, downloading files and eventually developing a romance interest. The game has a linear story, and the protagonist you play is a girl named Amie. It starts out a little slow, but eventually takes you to other cities and becomes almost an action/adventure type game. You are tasked with saving peoples’ lives, reviving someone using previously unseen technology, and gaining access to a restricted underground library.

The author is an avid gamer first and a college student second. In his spare time, he enjoys trying new games and writing reviews to encourage others to try them. For him, gaming is more than a hobby, it’s a requirement! He is currently updates his website called ESODragonKnight.com featuring news articles from his beloved franchises.